Horrible idea. I suffered from nicotine addiction for 10+ years. I then quit smoking and dipping and switched to nicotine gum. Ya well that's addicting as well. I chewed it for a year. Nicotine has negative health effects and I find it ridiculous to use it as a fat loss agent. Sure it has stimulant properties but that's dumb. I'll tell ya first hand that I didn't experience fat loss on it, and that's for chewin a sleeve of it a day for a year.

This article isn’t for the general public. It’s definitely, unequivocally not. I wouldn’t tell you to run your daily driver on pure ethanol formulated for Grand Prix racing, so if you’re already happy riding around in that Honda Civic body of yours, more power to you. This post, however, is for fire-breathing monsters—not necessarily race cars, but the Lamborghinis and Bugattis of the world seeking a balance between ultra-performance, aesthetics, and longevity. Proceed with caution here. Treacherous Turns Ahead.
Don’t tell me you just “train to be strong,” because I’ll know you’re lying. As people who train our asses off, we’re all constantly looking to accelerate the fat burning process while we add muscle. Nobody wants to spend hours in the gym, benching 315 for reps, before hitting the nightclub in a muumuu.
Trouble is, all the so-called “good stuff” that physique competitors use and abuse is kept hidden away from the public as a result of an unspoken code of silence. They’re also illegal. The law says you can’t take fat-burners like clenbuterol, albuterol and ephedrine anymore. This, however, may not be a bad thing, because research has shown that they’re not quite as effective as the bodybuilding world makes them out to be.
These fat-burners all target fat cells in the same way. Adrenaline uses particular receptors on fat cells to make them dump their fat load and empty out. The three I mentioned above target fat cells either by causing a release of adrenaline, or by using the same receptors as adrenaline.
They’ll stop working if you use them long enough. That’s because after a while, your cells become immune to catecholamines in general—which means they become immune to the effects of adrenaline. You develop a sort of “adrenaline diabetes,” where these fat burners stop doing what they’re supposed to do[1-4].
There is, however, a surprising—and highly controversial solution: nicotine.Most people have a hard time finding their way out of the box.

Way Outside The Box

Okay, before you write me off as an attention whore and tell me to go **** myself in utter disgust, hear me out, because there’s plenty of research indicating that nicotine can be a very effective replacement for even the most reputed fat burners, illegal or otherwise. It shares some of their properties without suffering from their failings. Nicotine, like other stimulants, raises lipoprotein lipase in muscle tissue but lowers it in fat cells[5]. Translation: your muscles can absorb and burn triglycerides easily, but your fat cells can’t store it. In short, nicotine makes it harder to get fat.
Right, but don’t all the beta-adrenergic agonists do that? Sure, that’s the reason contest-prep coaches recommend them in such copious amounts, because they need to fix the problems their ****ty old-school diets cause. Nicotine, however, comes with a little bit of magic. It actually stimulates the release of fat from fat cells and prevents storage by stimulating a different set of receptors[6]. These are the receptors targeted by the cholinomitics that reside in coffee. I’ve discussed these previously, but nicotine is far more intense. As a result, even if you go into that adrenaline diabetes I mentioned earlier, nicotine will still stimulate your fat cells to keep dumping fat.

But Wait There’s More…

Yours absolutely free, at no additional charge, is nicotine’s ability to potentiate muscle growth. That’s right: you’ll lean out and build muscle at the same time. What makes nicotine so effective for cutting and general fat loss is the fact that it’s also an effective stimulator of the mTOR pathway[7]—or simply TOR, as it’s now conventionally known. TOR is your anabolic primer. If you want to grow more muscle tissue—or any tissue, for that matter—it has to be turned on.
When you’re cutting, you’re in a state of calorie deprivation, which automatically decreases TOR. Nicotine, however, turns it back on—even when you’re going through a rigorous cutting process. This also gives us a non-nutrient way to turn TOR back on after an overnight fast, which if taken too long depresses TOR activation.
Nicotine can also increase nitrous oxide (NO) production during training, and it activates the AMPK pathway[8]. This carries a twofold advantage. First, free-radical accumulation during training can ignite muscle growth, but it’s a hermetic response. Elevating it for a while is good, but elevating it for too long is bad. There’s evidence that nicotine causes a short-lived burst. AMPK activation also prevents fat cells—once again—from storing fat.
I’m still not done. Recent studies elucidate several previously unknown pathways that downregulate myostatin, the protein that prevents muscles from getting big. Nicotine stimulates one of these myostatin-bashing pathways[9].Nicotine will turn doing calculus into a joke.

Nicotine also has nootropic effects, which means it can improve cognitive function, particularly working memory[10-11]. And no, working memory isn’t your recollection of the horrors inflicted on you over the years by your ******* boss while you sat in a biomechanically disadvantageous position in your cubicle and got fatter on a daily basis. Rather, working memory is your ability to reason correctly, succinctly, and efficiently[12]. So, yes, nicotine can make you smarter. Maybe not Einstein smart, but you’ll be able to figure out what I’m talking about at least 90 percent of the time—and during that other 10 percent, chances are I’m not even sure what the hell I’m talking about, so you’re good.Slow Down Killer

Smarter? Stronger? Impervious to adrenaline diabetes? I bet you’re not even reading anymore because you’re checking Nicorette prices on Amazon. As exciting as all this research is, however, it’s all still very new, and only through continued work will we discover exactly how powerful these effects are and how we can best utilize them for our performance and aesthetic goals. What’s not new—and what’s established fact—is that nicotine burns fat.
Nicotine accelerates fat burning in two major ways. In order to burn fat, you’ve got to get it out of fat cells. Nicotine, because of its unique receptor stimulation on fat cells, causes them to dump fat like a drunk sorority girl puking her guts out after a party[6, 13-14]. Because of this, nicotine is not appropriate for a carb-based diet because the simultaneous increase of triglyceride levels, insulin, and blood sugar can cause all the problems associated with diabetes—and fat cells exposed to nicotine and insulin simultaneously can actually increase the rate of fat storage in fat cells[15]. The fat-dumping potential of nicotine also increases with physical activity, so the more you move—or the more intense your movement is—the more fat you’ll burn[16].
Your resting energy output also goes up with nicotine ingestion. This appears to happen primarily through an upregulation of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1). The uncoupling proteins, when present in high amounts, disrupt the body’s ability to create ATP, and the excess energy gets wasted as body heat. This is how mammals regulate body temperature, and it’s also why starving yourself for fat loss decreases energy output. Calorie deprivation downregulates UCP1[17]. Nicotine re-stimulates UCP1[18-19], so you keep burning fat even if you drop calories.
And speaking of calorie deprivation, nicotine can help there, too. It’s an excellent appetite suppressor[20-22].

The Protocol

If you’re thinking a few moves ahead, you’ve probably figured out by now that you should take your nicotine first thing upon waking. This is how you can re-ignite mTOR activity without eating, thus allowing you to push your meals back a little further if you’ve found that works better with your lifestyle. All it can possibly do is increase fat burning and mental awareness. You only need 1 mg, although I’d highly recommend cutting this dosage in half to see how you react[25]. If you’ve never been exposed to nicotine—like me, before I started this regimen—it can leave you seriously mangled in the form of light-headedness and dizziness. Avoid operating heavy machinery or lifting heavy weights over your head, at least for the first few minutes.
After this, take another 1 mg in the afternoon, a few hours before training. This is the protocol I’d suggest when using either Carb Nite or Carb Back-Loading. For Carb Nite, the morning dose ensures quick clearance. Nicotine clears the system in roughly 24 hours, but this takes longer in the evening[24], and it’s hard to sleep with the elevated body temperature this causes. The same is true for Carb Back-Loading, but in that case, you don’t want to ingest nicotine with carbs because of the adverse effects discussed earlier.
Also, ingesting nicotine earlier in the day can cause transient insulin resistance[26], which means that if you’re ingesting nicotine while on Carb Back-Loading, you absolutely must resistance train.
I recommend chewing gum twice per day on training days, and only once per day on non-training days—or not at all. You should also make sure that you train on your actual Carb Nites if you’re going to implement nicotine usage while on The Carb Nite Solution—or abstain from nicotine for 24 hours before you feast.Stack It

Don’t be afraid to stack your nicotine and caffeine. I would lower your caffeine dosage from the maximum recommended training amount (800 mg) to 200 mg at most, an amount research shows to be an effective adjunct to the nicotine for fat loss and mobilization during training[25].I don’t know about you, but I’d rather cruise around in a Bugatti than a Honda Civic.

Power Is Knowledge

Yes, I know. I’ve got it backwards here, but in this case, it’s appropriate. Power is knowing how to use these cutting-edge techniques without affecting your health. The best time to use nicotine—and the only time I use it with clients—is during the last 4-6 weeks of contest preparation, or to help a powerlifter who has a lot of body fat to lose. Personally, I like to chew a 2 mg piece first thing in the morning, every other day. Even when doing this, I’ll never chew nicotine gum for more than eight weeks at a time without taking a break of four weeks or longer. You should adopt this protocol if you’re thinking about incorporating nicotine.Wrapping It Up

So, there it is. We’ve discussed all the good things nicotine can do for you, while addressing the bad, too. I’m here to provide cutting-edge knowledge to help you reach your goals faster and more efficiently without jeopardizing your health. This protocol is ideal for competitors who are leaning out, because it accelerates their fat loss while keeping them anabolic—which means far less muscle loss in most cases, and muscle gain during the lean-down phase. This can work for you, too.
Let’s be perfectly clear, though. I’m not recommending that everyone go out and try this. This is bleeding-edge science, and the consequences of such low-dose administration are unknown. From animal studies that use quantities in the range of micrograms-per-kilogram, the effects seem to be all positive, but these studies haven’t been done with humans. It’s safe enough, however, that researchers have considered using it as a treatment for Alzheimer’s.
As I said in my introduction, proceed with caution. Until there’s significantly more research done on the subject, the use of nicotine will remain controversial. Research on fat loss conclusively shows its benefit in that regard—and when compared to the illegal branch of the fat-burner family, it may actually be worth a try.
My purpose here is to relay to you what’s in the research, and to figure out how it can help you reach your goals. That’s what I do. And I’d never talk about something I wouldn’t do—and haven’t done—myself.

Using nicotine for weight loss is the same to me as "Hey I heard throwing up after every meal is a great way to create a calorie deficit!" Yeah it may work, but it's stupid.

Were on a site where people are taking superdrol left and right, using halodrol and God knows what amounts of anabolic steroids and you are complaining about a little nicotine? Lol...I see where you're coming from but the article IS interesting. Not saying we should all start this because I know I'm not going to but its worth looking into

not sure if this is something you have looked into but any thoughts appreciated

thanks

I'm sorry. I must have misunderstood that then? To me it appeared that you WERE looking for opinions. "Thoughts" and "opinions" seem fairly interchangeable.

I gave you my "thoughts." I chewed nicorette, and I did try it prewo for the possibility of fat loss. It did not work. I don't suggest it to anyone. I think it's a dumb horrible idea. I was not trying to be hostile in any of my posts like you have been. I have given you my "thoughts" on it as you had requested in your original post.

I'm sorry. I must have misunderstood that then? To me it appeared that you WERE looking for opinions. "Thoughts" and "opinions" seem fairly interchangeable.

I gave you my "thoughts." I chewed nicorette, and I did try it prewo for the possibility of fat loss. It did not work. I don't suggest it to anyone. I think it's a dumb horrible idea. I was not trying to be hostile in any of my posts like you have been. I have given you my "thoughts" on it as you had requested in your original post.

It's an open forum bud. Be mature.

fair enough, apologies

guess i was expecting a different result in a advanced discussion sub forum

if you have smoked for 10+ years and transitioned to gum pwo, i don't think your anecdote is of significance with respect to fat loss

guess i was expecting a different result in a advanced discussion sub forum

if you have smoked for 10+ years and transitioned to gum pwo, i don't think your anecdote is of significance with respect to fat loss

You won't get a direct answer right away in the advanced discussion. Usually it will fill with 50 other posts first. I understand you wanting an answer from the DR but prepare for other answers and thoughts.

Youre right it's not the ideal anecdote but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

I have used it for years to get lean. Great at nutrient partioning, appetite suppression and a bit of a "stim"? Gum seems to be best for me in terms of ease of dosing and, for me, the "chewing" of gum helps with appetite suppression.

This idea has been around for awhile. Lol Ive used the gum back in the day and could not imagine getting addicted to the nasty stuff. ha. Like the article says if you never smoked start light. Ive never smoked andthe gum had me lit the 1st few times.

nicotine withdrawal is pretty easy to get over. it's slightly more uncomfortable than quitting caffeine after high dosing for a long time. i think the risks of becoming hooked are significantly lower with gum than cigs. there is something extra going on with cigarette addiction... maybe the social aspect, oral fixation, extra chemicals, or a combination of those.

so if it actually does provide fat burning benefits it might be worth it. i think it's important to note that it could increase your risk of pancreatic cancer. snus, a swedish steam pasteurized tobacco product, is supposed to be a healthy alternative to cigs and dip without the added cancer risks. although, it still does slightly increase the chances of pancreatic cancer. i don't know if the cause is the nicotine or other chemicals in the product. i'm guessing it's the nicotine because of nicotine's effect on insulin production.

nicotine withdrawal is pretty easy to get over. it's slightly more uncomfortable than quitting caffeine after high dosing for a long time. i think the risks of becoming hooked are significantly lower with gum than cigs. there is something extra going on with cigarette addiction... maybe the social aspect, oral fixation, extra chemicals, or a combination of those.

so if it actually does provide fat burning benefits it might be worth it. i think it's important to note that it could increase your risk of pancreatic cancer. snus, a swedish steam pasteurized tobacco product, is supposed to be a healthy alternative to cigs and dip without the added cancer risks. although, it still does slightly increase the chances of pancreatic cancer. i don't know if the cause is the nicotine or other chemicals in the product. i'm guessing it's the nicotine because of nicotine's effect on insulin production.

you are correct...the nicotine addiction is way overrated, it's the other hundred plus chemicals in cigarettes that are far worse for addiction than the nicotine

the biggest problem ppl have are they think nicotine and automatically think cigarettes......there are many other forms of just nicotine which i've heard is about as harmful as a cup of coffee

as an ex-smoker or smoker depending on how you want to judge me i can say if i was hungry....a cigarette got rid of the craving for a time being so when i read the article i posted it did make sense to me...nicotine being a mild stimulant....it's been 5 months without a cigarette however

I´ve used nicotine gum during this winter. I have long drive to work and I have to wake up really early, and the idea was to reduce caffeine based stimulant use. I have noticed reduced appetite, slight energy boost and a slight nootropic effect. I have never smoked and haven`t noticed any withdrawal symptons when I am not using gum.